THE PROMISE WAS MADE TO ABRAHAM AND HIS SEED
Compare Genesis 17:7 with
Galatians 3:16
There is a great difference
between “seeds” and “seed”
So whatever promise God made to
Abraham was actually for his seed after him and Paul brings out a revelation
that God did not say he made the promise to Abraham and they seeds referring to
many but to “THY SEED” referring to one. In effect God was not talking about
Isaac, Jacob and all the sons to Israel.
Paul also revealed that, “the promise
was made to Christ”.
He could have said Jesus and that
would have meant something else, but what he said has a technical significance.
This is very important, when the Bible talks about Jesus, it refers to the man
Jesus, but when He is referred to as Christ; the body of Christ [i.e. the
church] is also being referred to. This is not mere semantics: we are the seed
of Jesus.
You need to follow this
1Corinthians 12:27 and Eph.1:19-23
also read Gala 3:27-29
Oh Hallelujah this is beautiful;
we who are born-again have automatically become Abraham’s seed and heirs of the
promise that were made to Abraham.
THE
PROMISE HAD SPIRITUAL ASPECT
The promise of a land to Abraham
was beyond the physical land of Canaan. we need to understand that God was
talking to a man who was not born-again and therefore did not have the capacity
or ability to enjoy spiritual things. Abraham was a man of faith but he was
also a man of flesh. When I say of the flesh, I mean of the human body; he was
not born again.
He lived in the sense realm, and
God had to appeal to his senses to communicate faith. At the beginning when God
told Abraham he was going to have a child, he found it difficult to believe God.
His wife Sarah actually laughed when she heard God. so God took him out one
night and said [Genesis 15:5]. Now Abraham believed God and it was counted to
him for righteousness.
He didn’t believe until that
time, and it was only after he believed that God changed his name from Abram to
Abraham. Do you understand now? God appealed to his senses to communicate faith
to him from the word of God. The promises that were made to Abraham included
all Spiritual, physical and the material blessings but not the Spiritual.
Even the people of the old covenant
could not enjoy the Spiritual benefits of the Abrahamic covenant. They could
not have the Holy Spirit of God come and dwell in them; it had to take another
generation of Abraham to enjoy this. We who are of the new covenant are those
walking in the Spiritual blessing of the Abrahamic covenant.